


The Good Ship Manatee

by Cloud_Portagate



Category: Firefly
Genre: But set in the Firefly verse, Gen, Not Beta Read, Not the Serenity Crew, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:48:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26933890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cloud_Portagate/pseuds/Cloud_Portagate
Summary: Another ship, another crew, the same war. How do other people react to being on the losing side of a battle? Join the crew of the Manatee for another trip 'round the 'verse.At the moment I'm only posting chapter 1 to gauge reaction. If it seems well received I will post more. I have written through chapter 8.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 1





	1. Announcement

**Author's Note:**

> This is set in the Joss Whedon's Firefly 'verse and draws its name, and some of its character inspiration from the song "The Good Ship Manatee" by Leslie Fish, on the album "Carmen Miranda's Ghost". I own neither of these things.  
> I have tried to keep the accents going through the work as they would be in the television show. That being said some of the thicker accents you really have to say aloud in order to make sense of them. All the characters, however, have their own POV sections, during which their accent is written in plain English. This is because it's always someone else who has the accent.  
> Finally, this chapter is considerably shorter than the rest of the chapters I have written, but it needed to end when it did, and, while I will try to put battles in where I can, I couldn't seem to get this one right, so you'll have to imagine it. I will post more if this chapter is well received, but shan't fill up the internet with more rubbish if it isn't.  
> Oh, one more thing- this chapter does contain some phrases and words in pinyin (one of the transliterations of Chinese). There is a glossary at the end of the chapter.

Chapter 1: Announcement  


Doctor Bonny Dickens heard the beeping of an incoming wave in her dream, but knew, even before it percolated through to her conscious mind, that it wasn’t a phantom noise. Waves with that tone were business. Fortunately, not hers. She rolled away from the warm muscled chest of Captain Scott, her sometime bed-partner, and struck out at the shelf that ran the length of the bulkhead until she found the tele-screen and the beeping stopped. The noise has caused her partner to stir, and, with a kiss, Bonny brought her to full wakefulness. “War’s calling,” she said, and handed over the portable screen. Captain Scott blinked the sleep from her eyes and, sitting cross-legged on the bed, the cover twisted around her waist and her pert breasts slowly getting gooseflesh in the relative chill of the cabin, she read the transcript that had been sent through. 

Bonny got herself up, and dressed in her usual maroon trousers, this time worn over a pair of the captain’s underpants, black bra, grey shirt, which used to be black once, she reminisced, black leather boots over socks that were nearly stiff enough to stand up on their own, and, finally, a maroon headband to keep her long white-blonde hair off her face. 

When she heard the captain moving Bonny turned back to her and opened her mouth to ask. The captain, anticipating her lover’s question, said, “just an update, Bones, nothing to worry about. We should be at the medical factory by tomorrow afternoon. Then we’ll head off to where things are heating up again.” Bonny was worried. The captain was using her ‘official’ voice. The one she’d learned in flight school to cover the country accent she was raised with. She didn’t like to use it when it was just the two of them. 

“That’s good,” was Bonny’s only reply, as she paced back to the bed, and ran her fingers through the captain’s thick black hair. The captain rested her head on Bonny’s stomach for a few seconds, then, seeming to draw strength from the contact, she sat up straighter and said, “you ought to be getting back to your quarters now. I daresay you need a change of clothes.” Bonny recognised the dismissal. It was the one which meant that her lover was now Captain Scott of the _Manatee_ , freight hauler of the Independents, and she was already hard at work. 

“Aye Cap’n,” she said, and turned to unlock the door, pull out the stairs and head out into the new day.

“Bones!” The captain’s voice behind her was admonitory. Bonny turned, and the captain tossed her own tele-screen over, “you forgot this.” The two women shared a smile, and Bonny departed for her own quarters, a change of clothes, and, maybe, on this quiet day, a shower.

***  


Drew stomped into the rec room, stared at the tower that was the Boss’s latest effort at stress relief, turned and stomped out. “Bones!” he shouted to the echoing corridors. Finally, taking a circuitous route through the cargo bay, after a scramble over some artillery and a meandering route through crates of body armour and bullets, the _Manatee_ ’s engineer located the doctor without having to get as far as the medical bay. Bones was knelt over a crate of medical supplies with Val, the ship’s quartermaster. 

“--through them all,” Bones was saying.

“That’ll take too long,” Val countered. “We can’t leave them without medical supplies in a battlefield situation.” 

“We can’t in good conscience hand over defective medical supplies, or ineffective treatments.” Bones argued. 

“What’s going on?” Drew asked, feeling slightly wrong footed by the seriousness of the conversation in light of what he’d been about to accost the doctor about. 

Val raised his head to look Drew square in the eyes and said, “one of our suppliers turned traitor.”

“Medical suppliers,” Bones added, unnecessarily in view of what Drew had overheard, but they had no way of knowing that.

“Shit. Want me to alert the Boss?”

“Please. She’ll need to alert the Commanders about it. I’ll test as many of these as I can and get back to her soon as, but she’ll be the one to choose our next course.”

“We picked up 200 crates at the last loadin’ stop,” Drew reminded her, startled at the determination, “you can’ check everythin’.”

“Then I’ll do my best, and if you can get Hal to give me a hand, I’d appreciate it.”

Val stood. “I’ll get Gil down ‘ere too. Least he can check f’anything’s missing from the kits, even ‘f’e dunt know quality.” 

Drew headed back the way he’d come with Val, only remembering at the rec room door why he’d been looking for Bones in the first place. Rolling their eyes at the Captain’s hobby, the two men entered and squeezed past what looked like the Notre-Dame of Earth-that-Was, and headed on up to the bridge and the armoury, respectively. 

***  


Predictably, Drew thought, the Boss threw a wobbler at the news, but was kind enough to take it out on the viewscreen in a tumult of swearing in what sounded like every language she’d ever learned to curse in. He recognised about half of what she said and of what he did know a lot of it involved which animal, carrying which disease, the mothers of the factory bosses had mated with to produce them. 

“Check with Bones,” she finally ordered, when she had calmed down. “If there’s paradol and a respiratory thing we’ll go ahead with the drop off at Lilac. They need that more than the other stuff. I’ll let Command know about this and the rest’ll be their decision. _If_ we’ve got what we need to drop. _If_ we haven’t we turn around and get it.”

Drew considered his next statement with a care he’d learned to use around the Boss when she was angry. Boss, that’ll mean attacking the factory. _no_. Boss, won’t that put us back in the Alliance’s line of fire? _no_. Boss, how do you plan on getting the stuff if they didn’t give it to us the first time? _maybe_. “Boss, how you gonna get ’em to give yuh what ya need?”

“We’ve got a cannon, and they’ve got an atmosphere. We’ll learn ‘em not to bug out on us.” There was no arguing with the Boss in that mood. Drew retreated to pick up Hal and ask Bones about the drugs. 

***  


Hal walked through the wreckage of the factory, scanning for anything useful. The _Manatee_ could carry about half the contents of the warehouse; Bones was directing Drew and Val on what to pack. Hal was wandering across what had been an open floor space, looking for whatever she could spot. In her right hand a scanner made quiet ‘blip’ noises every second or so, seeking high density areas of metal by ultrasound. There was a lower ‘blup’ noise as well, which was the infrared heat detection, looking for anything that might be even a few degrees warmer than the background levels. Hal noticed a plant in a pot lying on its side, its soil spilled over the floor. Instinctively she bent to pick it up and began to sweep up the soil. The moon’s naturally poor sand-like soil had been boosted with some compost, probably from the factory’s own recycling centre. The plant might be the last thing left alive here now. They certainly hadn’t anticipated the attack. 

In fairness, Hal thought, she hadn’t anticipated the Captain’s strength of feeling on the issue. Nor had she anticipated the Captain’s order to use the artillery they were transporting to assist in the attack, adding a further three deadly ground-to-air (in this case air-to-ground) guns to the Falcon class’s usual one. Gil, Bones, Drew and the Cap had each crewed one, and, oddly, it had been Gil, the security officer, who had done the least damage. 

Hal picked at something in the pile of sandy soil she was moving. It was solid. Maybe a piece of stone that had got through the terraforming? But it was too neat. A rectangle about an inch by an inch and a half, and squared off on the smaller side. She cleaned it and looked at it curiously. It was a data drive. But these weren’t confidential drugs being made here. They were commonplace throughout the verse. Hal could make them herself. In fact, she did make paradol for the crew, cooking it up from a variety of organic compounds and complex acids into a crystalline white power, which she could then compound into the bright red pills swallowed at least once a week, more usually once a day, by some member of the crew or another. 

So what was on a data drive? Especially one which appeared to have been hidden none-too-expertly in a plant pot. Hal put it into the pouch at her waist along with the various seeds she’d collected on their last visit to this factory and picked up her monitor, which was making a rapid ‘boop’. She saw the infrared outline of Gil Turner and pressed ‘acknowledge’ on the tiny screen. It went back to its quiet ‘blip-blup,’ ignoring the outline it now ‘recognised’. 

“Mѐimei, nǐ zhǎodàole shénme?” 

“Gēgē, nǐ kàn-bu-kàn dào zhefēng?” Hal held up the drive, so that her ‘big brother’ who was at least 18 inches taller than her, could take it without bending down. Her question was rhetorical: if Gil had seen it the drive wouldn’t still be in a plant pot, but it was a phrase Hal had carried over from her childhood, and Gil had learned to recognise that. 

”Méi kàn”, he replied, taking it. “You should show this to Mac, he’ll be able to bypass any security.”

“But what would be on it that would be interesting? There’s nothing in this place worth hiding.” _Especially now_ , she added in the privacy of her own head. 

“Bù zhīdào, sèqíng?” Gil teased.

“Gēgē!” Hal made her blush rise. She knew about the lewder side of the cortex, had grown up around people who made a living out of it, but there was no reason to bring it up with the crew. The mere word was enough to bring back extremely unwelcome images of her mother at work. Hal had kept her origins very quiet, and worked hard, including learning to blush on command, to keep those origins from the crew. If her gēgē ever learned what she’d almost become, Hal felt she’d die of shame. And she wouldn’t be able to stay with the _Manatee_ if anyone else ever found out, either. 

Gil threw a casual arm around her shoulder and cuddled her briefly to his chest as they walked together through the wreckage, a silent apology for embarrassing his innocent little sister. Hal felt bad about keeping the truth from him, but she’d played the innocent for too long now.

***  


The medical supplies were well received and the crew enjoyed a day of leave on New Kasimir, relaxing and resupplying with their own vice of choice. Of course, in the three days they were there, there was plenty of work to be done. Hal, who was officially employed by the Botanist’s Guild, had to take samples of local seeds and soil to monitor terraforming. Bones had to stock the medical bay appropriately, as well as lending and receiving advice from the local physicians. Mac updated the _Manatee_ ’s charts to include new positions of troops and which planets and moons were held by which forces, and plotted out their next course as soon as their destination was known. Val saw to the correct unloading of the cargo and checked their other caches of supplies to trade for weapons, ammo (the purchase of which Gil would oversee), food and fuel. The Captain had to catch up with the rest of the war and was likely deep in conversation with some colonel or other. 

And Drew was knee deep in spare parts looking with a critical eye over the latest salvage operation. Actually, quite a lot of the wrecked ship was still usable, he thought, especially since the _Manatee_ had a shuttle it could do with getting rid of. This lot, coupled to the shuttle, would make a decent little run-around ship. There was nothing intrinsically wrong with the shuttle, though, except the radar, so unless the captain could get a fully functioning one, Drew knew she’d never agree to getting rid of it. Even for the war effort. Also he had a suspicion that Val was keeping extra supplies in it. 

Now, though, he applied his mechanical mind to the problem before him-how to repair an air circulator so that the bypass wouldn’t flow through the cooling drive before it hit the catalyst. The way the parts in front of him at the moment could be arranged, that was the only possibility. He wondered, idly, if there was a spare radar signal output in the scrap here. 

***  


Just before the _Manatee_ was due to depart they saw a troop ship come in. The Colonel it carried, Dawson, was known to Captain Scott and she had deliberately waited in order to have a quiet conversation. Val watched the two silhouettes that stood in conversation from his vantage point on a recently loaded crate. He kicked his legs out irritably. Val was good at his job. He liked maths, figures, accounting. He didn’t like war. He didn’t like the gung-ho machismo of the marines, the false bravery they sported and the bully-boy camaraderie that even the women picked up. The soldiers moving around Dawson displayed a more subdued version of this. They had just come from a fight, and were here for a week or so of rest before they were deployed somewhere else. But Val still watched them with suspicious eyes. 

Drew came and leant against Val’s crate. “Ready to fly?” he asked, casually. 

“Everything’s secured,” Val replied. Val had been on the _Manatee_ for two years now, and Drew had joined their crew not long after. The two men know each other by now. Val knew that Drew hadn’t been asking about the cargo, and Drew knew that Val wasn’t going to give him a straight answer to so direct a question. 

“Good. Mac’s shown me the course. We’ll be flying fast around three planets and coasting into Whittier in good time. We’ll probably stay to pick up troops after.” Val suppressed a scowl at the thought of his least favourite people sharing the ship with him. But Bones was a good doctor, and the _Manatee_ was a transport ship. She could transport people just as well as cargo. He grunted at Drew’s comment. 

“Hally’s got something good on for dinner. It smells good enough to make my mouth water. Wanna go see?” Val stopped kicking the crate he was sitting on. Hal wasn’t an excellent cook, but she knew dishes that could make a man wish she’d cook more often. 

He had started to agree to Drew’s question, and to move off his perch when movement outside made him stop. The Captain was coming back, having clearly finished her conversation. She saw them and called over, “Drew, get to the engine room. I want Mac to get us up there as soon as he can. Val, buckle up.” And with that order she headed past them towards the bridge. 

Val clapped a hand on Drew’s shoulder. “We’ll have to sniff the food later, hey?” Drew gave a sharp nod, and the two went their separate ways. 

And, as Drew had predicted, it was a fast ride, slingshotting themselves past two planets in as many days before the communication came in. 

***  


”Mac, take us back to New Kasimir, to Three’s Hold, we’ll pick up Dawson’s rabble and slingshot past Heaven and Daedelus for speed. We’ll stop those bastards taking Hera from us.”

“Aye, Cap,” Mac replied, knowing his captain’s seriousness from the way her hand clapped onto his shoulder. The captain was committed to the Independence movement, and, although Mac didn’t fully know why, he knew enough to know that the captain had steered the Manatee through all kinds of trouble. Mac adored the ship, for all she was a freighter, not a warship, but he did occasionally want to try his skills in battle. In the academy he had trained to fly through all kinds of troubled skies, and he missed the edge-of-the-seat aspect of those training sessions. The _Manatee_ was, like her namesake was reputed to have been: a strong, bulky, ugly wallower. She was also currently half-full of munitions and food-stuff meant to be delivered to the colony and training base on Whittier. That meant little to Captain Scott, Mac knew. She was rumoured to be one of the most informed captains of the Independents, aware of supply chains, munitions captured, built and lost, crews on leave, crews in battle, crews in training, but she would never be happy as a paper pusher while there were others who could do the job for her. 

Mac had one slight worry as he steered his charge through 106° to starboard and 27° to the currently designated vertical, and that was Gil, their security officer. It was an open secret that Gil had a drugs habit. Stardust wasn’t as bad as Neon, its derivative, but it had some nasty withdrawal effects, and, with four days' travel to Hera, even going above regulation intra-system speed, he would be feeling the effects in their fullest agony by the time they arrived. It would be down to Bones to keep Gil under control for the foreseeable future. Mac hoped she was up to it.

Mac had turned the Falcon class ship, the tightest turn anyone could pull out of a hulk like the _Manatee_ , and signalled to Drew in the engine room to keep his fingers out of anything important, as he opened the throttle. He was keeping half an eye on the non-essential instruments during their acceleration, when one of them started beeping at him. 

”Captain!” he called over his shoulder, taking one hand off the joystick controller to open the communicator even as she leapt back up the steps to the bridge in a clatter of metal. The slightly tinny, flat voice of General Marquez filled the tight room, echoing slightly from the bulkheads.

_::To the ships and crews of the Independence movement, this is the Command Centre on Violet 3. We have come to the decision, with reference to past actions and future capabilities, that we of the Independence movement must accept the rule of Alliance law, and so order our troops to stand down, and to disarm yourselves. The Alliance has demonstrated their capabilities on Whitehall and on Shadow, and it is with this in mind that the Command Centre of the Independents has made this decision. The Alliance has robbed us of many fighters, young and old, and it is our intention, with this surrender, to prevent still further death._

__

_The Alliance leaders have agreed that all crewmen, ships and soldiers must be registered with their closest Alliance port or station, and will then be granted amnesty for actions taken under the banner of warfare. This concession was given freely by our new leaders, as they have every wish to dispel any remaining dissatisfaction that may be harboured by their new subjects_.

__

_It is our greatest hope now that this peace will mark the beginning of an era of prosperity for all people of the galaxy, and that we can stand assured of our safety, welfare and equality.::_

The voice fell silent, and, as white noise began to whine in his ears Mac reached out mechanically to flip the communicator off. 

***  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mѐimei, nǐ zhǎodàole shénme?: little sister, have you found anything?  
> Gēgē, nǐ kàn-bu-kàn dào zhefēng?: big brother, have you seen this [square] thing?  
> Méi kàn: [I] haven’t seen [it]  
> Bù zhīdào, sèqíng?: [I] don’t know, porn?  
> Gēgē!: (older) Brother!
> 
> I hope I've got the formatting right, but please let me know if there's anything I've missed.


	2. Futures

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The 'action', such as it is, takes place over three days, but that's a little hard to follow. I know I said that there would be action and battles and suchlike, but this one is almost entirely introspective. 
> 
> Author’s notes: when it comes to intellectual property I still lay no claim upon Joss Whedon’s Firefly-verse, nor on the bits based on songs from the albums Where No Man, Carmen Miranda’s Ghost, Minus Ten and Counting, and Free Fall and Other Delights.
> 
> Cait, this one's for you.

_::To the ships and crews of the Independence movement, this is the Command Centre on Violet 3. We have come to the decision, with reference to past actions and future capabilities, that we of the Independence movement must accept the rule of Alliance law, and so order our troops to stand down, and to disarm yourselves. The Alliance has demonstrated their capabilities on Whitehall, and it is with this in mind that the Command Centre of the Independents has made this decision. The Alliance has robbed us of many fighters, young and old, and it is our intention, with this surrender, to prevent still further death._

_The Alliance leaders have agreed that all crewmen, ships and soldiers must be registered with their closest Alliance port or station, and will then be granted amnesty for actions taken under the banner of warfare. This concession was given freely by our new leaders, as they have every wish to dispel any remaining dissatisfaction that may be harboured by their new subjects._

_It is our greatest hope now that this peace will mark the beginning of an era of prosperity for all people of the galaxy, and that we can stand assured of our safety, welfare and equality.::_

The voice fell silent, and, as white noise began to whine in his ears Mac reached out mechanically to flip the communicator off.

Captain Scott’s face was stony, her mind was blank. The Independents were to surrender, just like that? What about governance, what about poverty laws, what about tax havens and the justifications of variable excise? What about the dead?

What about Serenity Valley?

As if the thought of their most recent destination awoke something in her brain, she made a decision. 

"Alright, everyone into the rec room, now," she commanded. "Mac, get us into a course for Lilac and then join us as soon as you can." 

The captain was as good as her word, and went straight down to the communal area, leaving Mac to announce over the tannoy _::All crew to the recreation room for immediate briefing. Repeat, all crew to the recreation room for immediate briefing. Over.:: ___

__

__The assembled crew stood nervously in a half circle in front of Captain Scott. She looked them over, wondering what they would think of her._ _

__

__“Okay,” she said, when Drew finally joined them, his hands smeared in engine grease, “there’s been a… a development. Seems the generals have... have decided that the Alliance has won.” Her voice shook as she said the words, and her mind seemed strangely distant from her mouth, as though it didn’t quite belong to her._ _

__

__“The Alliance, in their magnanimity,” she spat, the saliva landing neatly next to the model of the Eye-Full Tower that she had built, “have agreed that anyone who registers with them as a citizen now gets amnesty for any involvement in the war. Now, I can’t force any of you to take or leave their offer. But I don’t believe them, and I’m not taking it. You all have got things you’ve got to live for: family, status, work. I understand that. But me and the Manatee aren’t taking any of their shit. And if you all decide to leave, I’ll drop you off where you need to be. You got three days to decide. That’ll get us in orbit around Lilac, right Mac?”_ _

__

__Mac nodded. Already he looked shaken, torn between his family and the Independents. But they all knew, Scott thought, that his family would take precedence._ _

__

__The others, without the benefit of having been on the bridge to hear the original announcement, were still taking it in._ _

__

__Bones, who had been idly fidgeting with some medical instrument that looked to Scott like a glockenspiel which had mated with a staple gun was staring at it as though it was the most fascinating thing she’d ever seen._ _

__

__Val looked relieved and ashamed. Scott couldn’t tell whether the shame was at the Independents, or at his own relief. He’d always struggled to show bravery in the face of conflict, but that was no bad thing. It reminded Scott what being human looked like._ _

__

__Drew was looking at a rivet in the bulkhead next to him as though it was telling him something fascinating. Riveting, in fact._ _

__

__Hal, holding a plant pot with waving tendrils springing from the soil, and with a smudge of dirt on her face, was flickering through emotions so fast Scott couldn’t keep up with them. But one kept coming back, and that one was fear._ _

__

__Gil had sat at the news, the only one to move. Scott couldn’t see his face: he held his head in his hands and was doubled up over his knees. She wasn’t sure if he was trying not to cry or dealing with drug withdrawal. She almost hoped it was the latter. She wasn’t sure she could deal with Gil in tears._ _

__

__“That’s all I wanted to say. If you need to talk, let me know. I’ll- I’ll be in my cabin for a bit.” Her voice cracked as she saw the slight tremor in Gil’s shoulders. She tried to salvage her dignity: “Hal, remember you’re on dinner duty.” Suppressing the turmoil within, she left the room as fast as she could. The captain should never run, even in an emergency. She’d heard that once. She wanted to run now. Run as she’d never run before. Run to the edge of space and keep going. Run to the black, until she blacked out. Because the Alliance couldn’t win. The Independents couldn’t surrender. Could they? There was too much to keep fighting for. It couldn’t be over._ _

__

__***_ _

__

__Val knew he should feel sorry for the Captain. Her Cause was gone. Some days it had seemed that the Cause mattered more to her than anything: her life, the lives of her crew, her ship. But it was at last all over. He could go home. Or rather he could make a home. The resentment he still felt towards his father for signing him up to fight meant that actually going home would be uncomfortable. But as the son of a magistrate and a war veteran, he would be well treated until he could find a place to set up on his own. He hoped so anyway. Being on the losing side might change things._ _

__

__But for all that, Val felt some loyalty to the Captain. She’d never commented on his lack of bravery. And she had never made him face the fear in front of anyone else, where it might become an issue. She’d done her best to get them through and seen his ability with numbers and calculations as more valuable even than he had._ _

__

__So, there were regrets that he would be leaving the Manatee behind, but none about leaving the war. He wondered what it would be known as, and whether the Alliance really meant what they said about amnesty. Would he be able to find a place in the new order the Alliance wanted to create? Would he be deemed untrustworthy because of his role in the Independents? Maybe he’d be better staying with the ship, just in case the Alliance really didn’t mean what they said. But he didn’t want to break the law, even if he wasn’t quite sure what the law was yet. And the Captain would be, wouldn’t she? What if they got caught? He didn’t want to be forced into a terraforming crew, or worse. But what if they did that anyway?_ _

__

__***_ _

__

__Mac was the first one to find the Captain, to talk about his decision, although really she had found him, coming up from her quarters to the bridge about 12 hours after her announcement to the crew. Mac thought she looked as though she’d been doing just about anything except sleeping. She settled into the co-pilot’s chair after a grunt of greeting, and began firing up communication scanners without a word. After a tense few minutes, Mac broached the subject._ _

__

__“Uhh, Cap?”_ _

__

__“Hnn?”_ _

__

__“About what we do next?”_ _

__

__“Hmm?”_ _

__

__“I need to go back, to see my family. They uh, they needed my pay, and now uh, I guess they’ll need me to actually get paid.”_ _

__

__“I know.”_ _

__

__Mac was surprised at the rough edge to her voice. It sounded as though she’d been crying. Although he’d seen the bags under her eyes, and the redness in the eyes themselves, he hadn’t expected it. He also hadn’t expected her voice to sound quite so strong._ _

__

__“We always knew you would go home when it was all over, Mac. There’s no shame in it. I’m not going to tell you not to.”_ _

__

__“Thanks, Cap.”_ _

__

__Mac had always made no secret that he intended to return to his family, but with the Captain’s history he hadn’t known whether she’d taken much note of it. It seemed she had._ _

__

__“You’re real good to us all, Cap. And I’m not just saying that to make you feel better. I mean it. You take good care of us.”_ _

__

__The only response was a wry twitching of her mouth, as though she found his words sour. Mac guessed it had been in bad taste. He changed the subject as fast as he dared._ _

__

__“Maybe my wife’ll let me name our next baby after you. What do you think?”_ _

__

__“Winifred MacNiell?”_ _

__

__The captain’s voice made the words sound unlikely, but as soon as they were said Mac realized two things. One was that he’d never known the Captain’s first name. The second was that it was the only fitting tribute to her._ _

__

__“I think my wife’ll buy that.”_ _

__

__He smiled at her and was relieved to see her smiling too. It was a sad, fragile smile, but it was there._ _

__

__“But you’ve got to come by sometime, to see her. After all, Jamie won’t think much of me if I tell her I had a skinny Captain. She’ll feed you until you want to explode and then offer you peach pie.”_ _

__

__At the mention of her favourite food the captain even gave a short bark of laughter._ _

__

__“I wouldn’t want to disappoint anyone with a peach pie,” she said, accepting Mac’s diversion, and the two sat in easy silence after that, looking out over a glittering panoply of forgotten hopes and failed dreams._ _

__

__***_ _

__

__In the past 24 hours Bonny had scrubbed everything in her medical bay twice, rearranged her instruments three times - although the last time had been to return them to their original positions. Fred was right: she had a position she could return to. She was a capable doctor, could easily make a living anywhere in the ‘Verse. She had trained for years, and couldn’t just give all that up, even for... yes, even for love. But could she give up love for all that?_ _

__

__Bonny had never pictured life after the war without Fred. She would be a doctor and her beautiful wife would have a shipping company, just like she’d had before the war. They’d be free of core politics, and able to operate independently, just like they’d fought for, and they’d be together._ _

__

__With a single announcement, that vision had been shattered. Now there were two futures, and she couldn’t bear to make the choice._ _

__

__***_ _

__

__Gil hated himself. Because he knew that, if he was free to choose, he wouldn’t choose to leave the Manatee. But there wasn’t a choice. He needed a regular supply of drugs, and he couldn’t get that if they were going to hide from the Alliance. So, he had to leave. But he couldn’t tell the Boss right away. Little Hal needed to know first. She deserved to know. But now he was standing at the door to her lab and couldn’t quite bring himself to knock._ _

__

__She saved him the effort, glancing up from a case of small plants and grinning._ _

__

__“Gēgē, hǎo ma?” It was as if nothing had changed in this overstuffed office _cum _laboratory _cum _greenhouse. The plant she’d been carrying earlier leaned its tentacles towards Gil, and Hal moved it to a different shelf._____ _

___ _

___“Hal. Mѐimei. I- I can’t stay. I hate it. But I need to go.”_ _ _

___ _

___“Wǒ zhīdào, gēgē. It’s alright. If I could make-”_ _ _

___ _

___“No. Hal, I don’t want you getting mixed up in this stuff. Not for me. Not for anyone. I wish I could stay. I wish I hadn’t- had never- I’ve never wished it so much.”_ _ _

___ _

___Hal hugged him, and Gil rested his head on hers, breathing in the earthy smell that never quite left her. And then he came to a decision._ _ _

___ _

___“I’m going to quit, mѐimei, I’m going to get off the stuff. Then…” Maybe he could come back. “Then it won’t be so hard to make choices.”_ _ _

___ _

___“You’d do that, gēgē? You’d really do it?”_ _ _

___ _

___“There’s a rehab programme. Mac gave me the details way back. I can go to that. Then...” It was too much to think beyond the enormity of what he was proposing. But this time it was right. This time the drugs hadn’t just driven a wedge between him and a friend. This time they had dictated his life. Had forced him into a position he didn’t want to be in. So, while he could think straight, while he could see through the need for his next injection, he would do this._ _ _

___ _

___***_ _ _

___ _

___Val had calmed himself down and come to a decision. He was leaving. He’d go back to his father’s moon and start trying to put together a new life. And now he was packing._ _ _

___ _

___Or failing to pack. It was another day to Lilac, so he needed at least one day of clothes. And soap and all that. And he couldn’t pack his shaving gear. Or his pajama pants. Or any weapons: they belonged to the ship. As did the logs of cargo, and valuations. He’d managed to half fill his duffel but couldn’t remember what he’d had in it originally beyond those things he couldn’t pack yet. So, it was sitting accusingly on the bed, and seemed to be forcing him to reconsider. But he had to leave. It was the only sensible thing._ _ _

___ _

___***_ _ _

___ _

___Drew hadn’t needed long to come to his decision and was back down in the engine room trying to immerse himself in maintenance when Hally came in with the tentacle-plant she’d taken to carrying around with her. She looked apprehensive, although that may simply have been the proximity of so many moving parts. Hally had never been comfortable around machinery that didn’t have plants growing on it. Maybe that was why she’d brought the plant - it was a kind of security blanket._ _ _

___ _

___“Drew, c’n I ax y’a question?” she asked._ _ _

___ _

___“’Course,” he told her, surprised that she’d asked. Hally was more the type to ask questions first then overwhelm you with information later._ _ _

___ _

___“’Cause, see, the guild- my guild, y’know, bot’nists,” she waited until he nodded and went on, “well, they said they’ll regist’r all members, so we dun’ hav’ta leave our work. An’ that’s good n’all, but- cap’n don’ wanna be regist’r’d do she? D’you reckon I gotta leave ‘cuz’a th’ guild? ‘Cause I dun’ wanna leave.”_ _ _

___ _

___“I think you need to ask the Boss about that. But- Hally, she’s been real good to the others who are leaving, so I don’t think you’ll have a problem. If you want to stay, I think she’ll let you, and we can always make up some other ship to satisfy the Guild.”_ _ _

___ _

___Drew gently extracted a tentacle from a vent panel and handed it back to Hally. “What’s it doing?”_ _ _

___ _

___“It’s looking for C.O.-two,” she explained, in her more confident, academic accent. “It wants to breathe, see, just like us. So it’s looking for good sources. It wrapped up Gil a few days ago. He wasn’t very happy. See, there, one’s found me,” and she teased the feeler off her face._ _ _

___ _

___“What is it?”_ _ _

___ _

___“An essperiment,” she said, cheerfully, “I thought it might be useful in terraforming. But it’s a little more active than I planned. So, I’m gonna keep it.”_ _ _

___ _

___“Boss has a rule about pets, Hally,” Drew joked._ _ _

___ _

___“She knows about it. She called it a monster. But it’s only little, so I’m calling it ‘Xiǎo guàiwù’.”_ _ _

___ _

___Drew smiled. Hally was trying so hard to make things seem normal in these strange times. “I’d hate to see it grown up.”_ _ _

___ _

___Hally smiled, too. “What are you doing, Drew?”_ _ _

___ _

___“I lived on Shadow, before the war,” he told her, by way of an answer. To his surprise Hally shifted the plant into one arm and laid a small hand on his forearm._ _ _

___ _

___“We’ll be OK, won’t we? We’ll be OK together.”_ _ _

___ _

___***_ _ _

___ _

___Bonny looked up as Fred climbed down the ladder into her cabin. The Captain took in the state of the cabin: bed unmade, wardrobe open, clothes piled in heaps. It was the room of someone in the middle of one of the most important decisions of her life, and it looked, Bonny suddenly realised, more like the room of her little brother when he’d been thirteen. She had so far packed, unpacked, packed again in a different order, upended her suitcase and finally thrown various non-breakable items all around in a strong fit of pique. She looked helplessly at Fred, who walked through the mess with more dignity than Bonny could have imagined. The two women stood face to face. Bonny’s extra three inches of height were noticeable at this distance, but they never seemed all that important. Without thinking about it they melted into each other’s embrace._ _ _

___ _

___“You’re leaving?” Fred murmured after a too-short moment of comfort._ _ _

___ _

___Bonny shook her head, rubbing her cheek over the plaits held tight to the other woman’s head. At the movement, Fred broke the hug and looked up._ _ _

___ _

___“But… your family? Your career?”_ _ _

___ _

___“Yeah, I kept thinking that, and then I kept thinking ‘I have both of those, right here’.” She closed the distance between them and bent her head to kiss her lover. Fred was having none of it and pushed her away._ _ _

___ _

___“I won’t let you stay if you don’t mean it.” Her voice sounded just a little strained. If Bonny hadn’t known the captain so well she probably wouldn’t have noticed it. “I won’t be the one you blame for holding you back.” Fred shook her head as if battling midges._ _ _

___ _

___Bonny took her hands, forcing Fred to open her beautiful dark eyes._ _ _

___ _

___“You aren’t,” she whispered. She led the way to the bed and sat on it, pulling Fred down to sit next to her and tried to explain. “When I thought about leaving, and what I was going back to, I wanted to go. I wanted to see my parents, all my old colleagues, my little brother. He’s nearly finished his internships by now, he’s going to be a ‘real’ doctor soon.” Bonny gave a sad smile as she remembered some of his complaints on the length of the interning he’d had to do._ _ _

___ _

___“But then I thought: a lot of my colleagues will be dead, or moved on. I’ll be moved on- to another hospital, maybe another system- and I won’t get to see my family, or my old friends. And I thought about the future, and how that would feel. And I thought I’d be OK with the loneliness… if I could come home to you. Every time I tried to think of a future you were in it. And I thought ‘what would it be like to stay here, with you and a handful of the others?’ and I thought ‘it would be better than an alternative without you’. So I’m staying. And you’re a part of that decision, but it’s my decision.”_ _ _

___ _

___She took Fred’s hand and held it tenderly in both of hers, marvelling at the contrast between their skins: Fred’s with its dusky bloom that made it look as if fairies had sprinkled her with their dust, and her own pale hands that looked oily, creased and damaged._ _ _

___ _

___“I don’t know if I’d have left, for sure, if I thought it would be better to go, but I know I’ve given it as much thought as I can.”_ _ _

___ _

___This time Fred accepted her kiss, and made no mention of the tears that trickled down Bonny’s face after her confession._ _ _

___ _

___***_ _ _

___ _

___Little Monster had found a crack in the exhaust vent, which had nearly caused Drew to miss the grand sendoff. Hally had asked him to look after the plant while she popped to the lav with the promise that she would come back for it before they went down to see the others off. Its feelers were quickly probing as far along the vent as it could reach until they all concentrated on one point. Although the crack was only small, Drew had always been punctilious in the care of his engine room, and had assembled his tools in readiness to fix the problem when Hally returned and asked what he was doing, and whether he was really going to miss saying goodbye to the others. Aggravated at himself, the plant, the ship, and the Alliance, Drew knew he was poor company to his friend as they went to the fore-deck to see the others into the shuttles._ _ _

___ _

___In fact, only one shuttle was being prepared for launch, Drew saw as they reached the deck. It was the ‘broken’ one, which had been used as storage for most of the time Drew had been on the ship, its radar having given out some time ago. This made it harder to pilot, but since their pilot was going away in it, Drew supposed he could handle whatever came at them._ _ _

___ _

___“Drew, Hal, there you are,” Bones hailed them, and Hally ran up to Gil for a prolonged farewell embrace. The goodbyes among the others were peremptory. Drew reasoned he was not alone in being utterly unaware of what to say in such circumstances. ‘We might never see each other again’, ‘we might be imprisoned before the end of the week’, ‘how could you abandon your cause like this?’, ‘let me come with you’._ _ _

___ _

___Drew thought some of this might have communicated itself to Mac as they shook hands, for the man looked ashamed of himself, but turned resolutely to the shuttle when they parted._ _ _

___ _

___The shuttle doors closed, the airlock clicked behind them. The engines fired, and the shuttle disengaged from the ship. It seemed to Drew that some vital part of himself went with it, that some living being, the collective organism known as The Crew, was now forever divided and dead. Without saying a word the three ladies departed, leaving him staring at the airlock, and the friends who could never return._ _ _

___ _

___***_ _ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gēgē: Big brother,  
> hǎo ma: hello/how are you?  
> Mѐimei: Little sister  
> Wǒ zhīdào: I know  
> Xiǎo guàiwù: Little Monster

**Author's Note:**

>  **Glossary**  
>  Mѐimei, nǐ zhǎodàole shénme?: little sister, have you found anything?  
> Gēgē, nǐ kàn-bu-kàn dào zhefēng?: big brother, have you seen this [square] thing?  
> Méi kàn: [I] haven’t seen [it]  
> Bù zhīdào, sèqíng?: [I] don’t know, porn?  
> Gēgē!: (older) Brother!
> 
> I hope I've got the formatting right, but please let me know if there's anything I've missed.


End file.
